


where you hurt's a sacred place

by sepiacigarettes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depression, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Therapy, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepiacigarettes/pseuds/sepiacigarettes
Summary: There are things Keith shares with him that the others would never receive.Like now, in the middle of the night when no one should be awake, asking him to come over.Except Shiro doesn’t expect to walk intothis.In which Keith has a mental breakdown, and Shiro helps him pick up the pieces.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 61
Kudos: 211
Collections: Sheith Prompt Party 2020





	where you hurt's a sacred place

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [sheith prompt party](https://twitter.com/sheithparty) for prompt 15: 'Modern AU in which Shiro comforts Keith after his mental breakdown.'
> 
> please heed the tags! there is nothing overly graphic but make sure to take care of yourselves when reading this one ✨
> 
> huge thanks to [sarah](https://twitter.com/ailurea), [robin](https://twitter.com/stardropdream) and [sharki](https://twitter.com/leftishark_) for putting together such a cool event! 💖

> I've been thinking bout the last time,
> 
> Hearing of your past life following you
> 
> A softer centre than the outside,
> 
> Hurting deeper down like nobody knew
> 
> I could see the way you ache
> 
> That **where you hurt's a sacred place**
> 
> I wanna hold you so you don't
> 
> Give up and runaway
> 
> You're stronger than me
> 
> You're stronger than you think you are
> 
> — Ocean Grove, _Shimmer_

— S —

Keith is a lot of things to Shiro. He’s sharp grins and late night drives, red cheeks and a pulse that thunders under Shiro’s touch. He’s his best friend, clouds of dust whenever they race because Shiro is competitive but Keith is worse and he always wins. He’s stubborn and sardonic and never questions Shiro’s gallows humour, just joins in and makes Shiro’s sides ache from how hard they laugh.

He’s the best thing in Shiro’s life, the very best.

He’s this, the message blinking at Shiro on his phone. It’s late, too late for anyone to be awake if they have somewhere to be in the morning, but Shiro takes one look at the message and is flying out of bed anyway.

_can you come over_

_Of course he can,_ Shiro thinks, because he’d do anything for Keith, but Keith would never ask Shiro for anything in the first place.

Which is why Shiro is on his bike less than a minute later, having paused only to pull on a hoodie. It’s his favourite grey one, the one Keith always loves to steal and sleep in whenever possible. Shiro likes the way it smells like Keith whenever it winds up back in his possession again, but those times are few and far between. 

Truly, it’s a miracle it’s even in Shiro’s apartment right now.

The sky is a muted brown, slowly lightening with the oncoming promise of dawn. It’ll still be a couple of hours until the sun shows itself and Shiro lets the eerie calm of it wash over him to quell the simmering anxiety.

His job requires him to be a morning person but he’s much more a night owl like Keith; there have been countless times where the two of them have sat under the stars and talked about their lives.

Shiro could have kissed Keith on so many of those times—he desperately wanted to.

There is always something sacred in the way the stars shine upon Keith’s face, something precious that Shiro craves.

Does anyone else get to see Keith like that?

He doesn’t think so.

He hopes not.

Keith has told him repeatedly that he doesn’t get on easily with other people, and sure, they’ve got their little family with Hunk, Lance, Pidge and Allura, but Shiro and Keith are their own unit.

There are things Keith shares with him that the others would never receive.

Like now, in the middle of the night when no one should be awake, asking him to come over.

Except Shiro doesn’t expect to walk into _this._

“I did something stupid,” Keith says as soon as Shiro walks in.

He looks like—honestly, he looks like absolute shit.

They’ve been friends for a couple of years now, have helped each other through the trials and tribulations of university ever since Shiro met Keith at orientation. Shiro has seen Keith exhausted after pulling an all-nighter, has seen him angry after receiving a bad mark, has seen him drunk and starry-eyed at all the parties they went to, arms looped around Shiro’s neck, mouth against his throat, completely unaware of Shiro’s pounding heart.

He’s never seen this: Keith, with swollen eyes, blotchy skin and still-wet cheeks. Keith, with lines of red beaded on his wrist.

One… two… three… four…

Shiro counts at least six before he feels like throwing up.

“Um,” he somehow says instead of vomiting, hands reaching for Keith automatically. “Hey, Keith, listen… let’s… let’s get you sitting down again.”

And he prods Keith towards the couch.

It’s a terrible couch, this horrible shade between orange and red that clashes with the rest of the furniture in Keith’s apartment, but Keith likes it because it reminds him of the desert sands where he grew up, so Shiro doesn’t usually give it much thought.

“There,” Shiro says when Keith is seated, sinking into the pillows like he could be buried there. “I’ll be right back.”

The water is freezing cold and takes an age and a half to heat, during which Shiro digs around for a dish towel underneath the sink.

 _We have so many memories in this apartment,_ he thinks to distract himself as he finds one and runs it under the water.

The bulletin board that Keith likes to pin photos and memorabilia to is a testament to that. Pidge’s scrawled song recommendations for Keith are there, as well as a recipe cut-out from Hunk that they’ve yet to try, and a few drawings of the group of them from Allura. Shiro is especially biased towards the selfie of him and Keith, tucked into the top-right corner.

“Here we go,” he says, too brightly, too fake, as he kneels in front of Keith again.

Keith hasn’t moved since Shiro guided him down.

“Give me your hand,” Shiro encourages gently, grasping Keith’s wrist when it’s offered to him.

The cuts are drying now, deep enough to bleed, shallow enough that Shiro’s rabbit-fast pulse hasn’t given him a heart attack yet, and Shiro sucks in a breath as he presses the dish towel over the closest one.

It can’t be the most comfortable, especially since Shiro added salt to the warm water, and he keeps saying, “sorry, sorry,” as he presses the towel against Keith’s ruined skin, but Keith doesn’t make any noise of pain or discomfort.

He just keeps staring blankly at the wall.

Shiro bites his lip, and just keeps going until the cuts aren’t surrounded by red anymore, and then it’s back to the kitchen to find something to cover them with. Given the rest of Keith’s house looks like a tornado went through it, it’s always a surprise to find Keith’s first aid kit is impeccable.

“Growing up in the desert will do that to you,” he told Shiro when Shiro first found out, and he had that drawl of his, the one Shiro loves so much every time he hears it, the one that only ever comes out when Keith is really tired or relaxed.

Once the bandaids and salve are laid over the cuts, Shiro doesn’t know what to do now that his hands aren’t occupied, but he has to stay busy because he doesn’t think he’s ready to deal with Keith, so he ducks back over to the kitchen to wash the dishes.

There are hardly any to do but Shiro washes them meticulously and then dries them with the same amount of focus and by the time they’re put away, he figures there isn’t much that can go wrong if he vacuums the place as well.

Keith’s tiny shoebox apartment will only take a few minutes anyway.

The next obvious step would be to mop the floor now that it’s free of dust, so Shiro does that too.

It’s only after he takes a break and sits back down in front of Keith cross-legged that he lets the image of his best friend hit him.

He still looks like shit.

It’s like he isn’t here in the room with Shiro; like he clocked out in the time it took for Shiro to clean the apartment and now he’s in the aether, floating among the stars they so often look to.

“Keith?” Shiro says carefully, half-scared to break the fragile silence.

Keith blinks. His eyes are red-rimmed and vacant, but at least his cheeks are dry.

“Do… do you want to talk about it?” Shiro offers, because he knows Keith.

Keith will never give up the information about what happened to make him feel like this without Shiro giving him an opening first. It’s how he works.

Keith sniffs, looks down at Shiro for the first time and makes eye contact and that—that fucking _hurts,_ seeing the best part of his life like this. It punches into him and forces Shiro to accept the slimy taste of it.

“Not really,” Keith says hoarsely and Shiro nods, because everything hurts and he doesn’t know what to say.

“Have you eaten?” he asks instead.

Keith shakes his head.

“Okay,” Shiro says, thinking of meal options at this hour when the stores are closed and Keith’s house is empty.

Honestly the best thing he’s arriving at is McDonald’s.

“I’ll get you something,” he says, and then wonders if it’s a good idea to leave Keith on his own again. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

Except Keith shakes his head again and just curls into himself even more.

That’s okay. Shiro won’t force him.

The tiles are cold and Keith’s feet must be freezing, but he’s shrugged off the blanket Shiro bundled him into when he first prodded Keith down.

 _I love you,_ Shiro thinks helplessly, _I love you and I’m sorry you’re hurting, I’m sorry I can’t do anything to fix this right now, I’m sorry—_

“I’m so fucking sick of living, hey,” Keith says, all low and casually, like he doesn’t tear out a piece of Shiro’s heart with the words.

The worst part is that Shiro actually finds himself agreeing.

“I know,” Shiro hears himself saying, because he _is_ sick of living as well, sick of waking up and dragging himself to work, sick of saying he’s fine, sick of telling all his friends and coworkers that no really, he’s okay, it’s just been a long _daynightweekyearlife_. “I know you are.”

“I just want to sleep and never wake up.”

“Oh, Keith.”

“I hate this, Shiro,” Keith whispers, pulling his knees up and hugging them to him.

When he starts crying again, it feels like a window shattering.

Shiro waits for two seconds and then he _can’t,_ he can’t just _sit there_ while his best friend is falling apart like that and so he’s up.

“Hey,” he says roughly, surging to pull Keith into his arms. “Come here, come—yeah, that’s it. Let me.”

Keith just sobs and lets Shiro manhandle him until they’re both on the couch together, face tucked against Shiro’s neck. Keith is strong and beautiful, a thousand and one suns compressed into this whipcord body and yet right now, in Shiro’s arms, he feels like glass.

“You’re okay,” Shiro murmurs, and then he clenches his teeth shut before anything else can come out.

He says dumb stuff when he’s stressed, things that he doesn’t doubt would be unhelpful for Keith to hear right now.

“I want to die,” Keith mumbles, hand over his mouth. “I just want to die.”

“Hey, don’t,” Shiro warns, touch gentling against Keith’s side when he realises he’s gripping just a bit too hard. “Don’t say that. I’m here.”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles, inhaling shakily.

Shiro wonders if the sadness is like an oil spill, pouring out amongst the ocean of Keith until there’s nothing but black. 

Right now he feels like he’s lost at sea.

— S —

It gets better.

As in, Keith falls asleep in Shiro’s arm after repeating he wants to die about ten times, and then he stays that way until Shiro carries him to bed and tucks him. Then he reaches for Shiro sleepily and mumbles, “thank you,”—or possibly, “I love you,” Shiro is too scared to find out—and then doesn’t stir for the next hour that Shiro spends at his side, running his fingers through Keith’s hair.

He leaves Keith once the sun is properly up and his sister is knocking on the door, big blue eyes full of worry.

“Where is he?” she demands and Shiro just points at the bedroom.

Once Romelle is sure he still has a pulse, she sends Shiro home. “You look like _death,”_ she says emphatically.

Shiro feels like it, definitely, but she doesn’t have to say it with such fervour, really.

But he goes, stumbling into his own place and hiding in the shower for long enough to make his water bill creep to the forefront of his mind, and then he passes out until the afternoon.

The six hours after that are spent sitting in the lounge crying on and off.

Yeah.

It gets better.

— S —

Shiro finds himself at work on Monday literally dragging his feet and wonders if there’s any way he can just dive headfirst out the window. Keith messages in the morning and says his mom is flying in from Marmora to be with him. She’ll be here at the end of the week.

Shiro reads it, then puts his phone down.

He should reply.

He doesn’t.

There’s just.

There’s just this _thing_ that’s been simmering on the back of his tongue ever since he left Keith drowning in the blankets yesterday.

It tastes awful, something Shiro doesn’t like to acknowledge or put in the same box as Keith.

Because Keith is happiness and fun, warm laughter and good memories; he’s hidden smiles reserved for Shiro, sarcastic comebacks and heated debates about which is the better sauce—tomato or barbeque.

Keith is the warmth that lingers after sitting under the summer sun, the kind that lulls Shiro into a thick, delicious sleep.

Keith isn’t this: this bitter shadow of _resentment_ in Shiro’s mouth.

“How was your weekend, man?” Hunk interrupts, leaning against Shiro’s desk and folding his impressive forearms.

Shiro is a big person, but Hunk outranks him in the hug department with those arms.

“Amazing,” he answers, and he can’t even find it within him to inject any sort of positivity into his inflection.

Hunk makes a face. “Yikes, dude. What happened?”

Shiro stares at his computer screen, wondering why the hell he put the brightness up so high. He’s going to need glasses at thirty, at this rate.

“Uh, nothing major,” Shiro says, the words _‘my best friend wanted to die on Saturday’_ bubbling on his lips _._ “Just Keith.”

“Oh,” Hunk nods conspiratorially, like he doesn’t know just how in love Shiro is with their friend.

Shiro is blaming the vodka for making him confess to Hunk at Allura’s birthday last year. 

They’d been at a bar after too many rounds of shots, and Allura had been up on the dancefloor between Keith and Lance when Hunk had blindsided Shiro with, “does he know you’re in love with him?”

Shiro was always a terrible liar.

He’s pretty sure he spewed something like, “it’s a bit fucking insane how many things I’d do for him… to him…” and then told Hunk _everything_ in the time it took for their group to return to them.

A headache is blooming behind Shiro’s eyes, red and angry.

“You wanna grab lunch?” Hunk says. “Get away from here for a bit?”

The report isn’t even getting done, anyway.

“Sure.”

— S —

“So,” Hunk says, when the two of them are sitting at the cafe just down the road from their workplace waiting for their meals. “What happened with Keith to destroy your sunbeams today?”

Shiro frowns, not in the mood for being teased. “I don’t have sunbeams, Hunk.”

“Oh man,” Hunk snorts. “You absolutely do. You’re like the goddamned Sistine Chapel. I can almost hear the harps.”

Shiro keeps his eyes on his coffee.

“But seriously,” Hunk says, leaning forward. “What happened?”

“Like I said, nothing major,” Shiro repeats from before.

Hunk’s expectant look does not shift.

Irritation boils under Shiro’s skin and he bites down on it before it can surface. He knows Hunk is just trying to help. Out of all their friends, he’s probably the only one who Shiro could share something like this with anyway.

Allura would be sympathetic and provide solutions that Shiro isn’t in the mood for yet. Pidge would try to logic her way through it, like she does with everything. Lance has his moments, Shiro will admit, but he doesn’t have the energy to weather Lance’s level of enthusiasm right now.

“Keith just called me over the other night,” he sighs, “and I was… basically on suicide watch?”

Saying it out loud like that feels too heavy, too dark, too much. He didn’t do a lot, just cleaned Keith’s arm and apartment and made sure he slept on a bed. It wasn’t _that_ bad.

But Hunk’s eyebrows fly up. “Dude, that’s… holy shit, man, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says automatically, but Hunk is out of his chair anyway and coming around the table to hug him. “I’m okay.”

“Sure you are,” Hunk says, tightening his arms.

Shiro was right. Hunk definitely outranks him. They must be a funny sight, two big men hugging it out in a little niché city cafe in the middle of the day.

“I’m fine,” Shiro reassures Hunk, because he is.

He’s seriously fine. He slept eight hours last night, he destroyed his legs in the gym this morning, and he is staying hydrated so far. He’s all about that self-care life.

“Yeah, and I’m terrible at cooking,” Hunk says, releasing Shiro and taking his seat again. “I’m sorry to hear that, man. That’s a lot to deal with.”

Shiro doesn’t like the sound of that, like Keith’s breakdown is baggage that he has to shoulder. There’s no obligation to it, 

“I’m happy to deal with it, Hunk.”

“Never said you weren’t,” Hunk says easily. “Christ, anyone with _eyes_ knows that, dude. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot to deal with, though.”

Shiro stares out the window. He was doing much better at his desk when he could let his eyes glaze over at his computer screen. The bitter taste wasn’t quite so pronounced when it wasn’t the topic of conversation.

“I didn’t do much.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hunk shrugs. “I don’t care if all you did was text him, it’s still a huge emotional load.”

“We’re best friends, Hunk.”

“And you’re in love with him,” Hunk finishes. “I know, dude. My point still stands.”

The waiter comes over before Shiro can reply, setting down their meals. Shiro watches Hunk interact with them, unable to stop the smile that creeps onto his face at the way Hunk thanks them emphatically and says it smells amazing.

Hunk was wrong—he’s the one with sunbeams, not Shiro.

“I don’t regret it,” he says quietly as Hunk bites into his turkish. “I’m just… angry. No, that’s not quite right. I’m not angry. It was just…”

“A lot?” Hunk proffers.

“Yeah,” Shiro says, not satisfied with the explanation but finding it the only adequate descriptor. “I guess you’re right.”

“What’d you do?”

“Not a lot.”

“That’s not an answer, dude.”

So Shiro tells him, “I just… walked in and he’d self-harmed and I cleaned it up for him.”

Hunk has these impossibly big brown eyes that bore straight into Shiro and demand attention.

“He just cried a lot and kept saying he wanted to die.” The table they’re at is directly in the path of the sun, which is perfect. Shiro can squint into the glare of it and pretend that’s what’s making his eyes sting. “I felt so fucking useless.”

“You weren’t,” Hunk soothes. “There’s a reason he trusted you enough to ask you over when he was so bad. You did a good thing.”

“Then why…” Shiro trails off, not sure how to finish.

“It’s probably the over-achiever in you,” Hunk remarks. “You’re such a _giver,_ Shiro. You like to fix things.”

“I can’t fix this one, huh,” Shiro says ruefully.

Hunk shakes his head. “No, bud.”

Shiro’s coffee slides down his throat. The slimy taste from before still sticks.

Hunk keeps eating. “Sounds like you guys need to sit down and have a proper talk about that night—when was it again?”

“Saturday.”

“Jeez, not long at all. Yeah, one-hundred per cent, just talk to him. You guys are best friends, you can tell him how _you_ feel too, you know.”

It feels selfish, in a way. “I don’t want to overload him.”

“You won’t be,” Hunk reassures him. “Listen, none of our group are neurotypical, it’s not like this is a new thing for any of us, yeah? Just navigate it with the same finesse you do there.”

It doesn’t seem _quite_ that simple, but Hunk has a point. Finishing university together and graduating into proper adult jobs with proper adult responsibilities is both a blessing and a curse; a blessing in the way financial stability is a thing, a curse in the way that Shiro wakes up every morning for work and thinks, ‘is this really _it?’_

Their friend group runs on a solid mix of depression jokes and poorly-veiled self-deprecation.

“I’m not angry at him,” Shiro says, half-defense, half-realisation.

“Never said you were, dude.”

“Okay.” There’s no more coffee to swallow. “Thanks, Hunk.”

“No worries, man. How are you feeling?”

Shiro looks down at the turkish on his plate. “Better, actually.”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Hunk says. “You’ll wound my fragile ego.”

“Your ego is nothing compared to Pidge’s or Lance’s.”

“You’re not wrong,” Hunk says. “But I’m just saying. There’s a lot of power in just talking things out. Helps that I’m not involved with you two.”

“Perspective,” Shiro says faintly. “You’re not so close.”

“Exactly. Bigger picture and all that shit. Now will you hurry up and eat? I’m going to steal it if you don’t.”

“Not a chance.”

— S —

“Hey,” Keith says, impossibly soft, when Shiro turns up at his place the next night.

Shiro went to the gym straight after work to get outside of his head, pummelling the punching bag until salt stung his eyes and his arms begged for a break. There was less room to overthink when his mind was solely focused on the ache in his body.

“Hey, you,” Shiro says, going straight in for a hug.

It’s such a _relief_ to be able to put his arms around his best friend, to feel the strength in his muscles as he returns the hug and buries his face against Shiro’s throat. He could stay like this forever if Keith let him, could drag him over to the bed and fold each of their limbs over one another and just _breathe._

“Thought you were ignoring me,” Keith says when they part, and Shiro knows by the light tone he uses that he’s joking and serious all at once.

“I wasn’t,” Shiro disagrees, too aware of the unanswered messages on his phone. “Just had a lot on my plate.”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “Me too.”

Shiro does not mention the other night, but he knows it’s at the forefront of both their minds. His eyes linger on Keith’s forearm as Keith leads him into the apartment and sits down on the shitty couch.

The place is still impeccably clean from Shiro’s handiwork the other day.

“I stayed with Romi,” Keith explains when he notices Shiro’s expression. “She didn’t trust me on my own.”

 _Well, that makes two of us,_ Shiro thinks grimly.

“Are you staying here tonight then?” Shiro asks.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Keith answers, picking at a loose thread. Orange thread fluffs up and Shiro’s hands itch to find scissors to free it with. “I… Shiro? Thank you, for the other night.”

“No problem,” Shiro says. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

“I know, but… I talked to Hunk.”

Shiro has to tamp down the panic that surges within him at Keith’s words. Hunk would never betray him, and even then, there’s nothing to hide.

“Felt a bit lost so he came over last night.”

“Did he help?” Shiro asks, wondering _why_ jealousy is swiftly replacing the panic because it’s _Hunk,_ their overwhelmingly positive food snob of a friend who is head over heels for Pidge and has been ever since their second year of uni.

Still. It should have been Shiro.

“Yeah,” Keith says. “He did. You know Hunk.”

“I know Hunk.”

Keith keeps hacking away at the couch, and part of Shiro wonders if he should be grateful for the distraction. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m not,” Shiro says immediately. “I’m glad you messaged me.” Then, because they’re on a roll: “You know me.”

“Yeah, I do.” Keith’s gaze is impossibly fond. “Thank you, though. You didn’t have to come.”

“I did,” Shiro objects. “You know I’m here for you. I’ll do whatever I can for you, whenever you need. I’m that person for you.”

To Shiro’s dismay, Keith’s eyes go watery and the smile he gives Shiro is weak, like the sun behind rain clouds. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“What did I do to deserve _you?”_ Shiro counters, and he means it.

He has so much room in his heart for him.

Keith laughs, and it isn’t a proper one, but it’s light enough, a sign of better times on the horizon. Shiro basks in the gentle sound of it. He always liked sunshowers, anyway.

“Did you eat?”

“No. Wasn’t hungry.”

“When’s the last time you ate then?”

“Lunch?”

Shiro makes an exasperated noise. “Come on. I’m taking you out to get food.”

“Shiro…”

“Come on,” Shiro coaxes. “Let me take care of you.”

— S —

The sunset is beautiful, a hazy pink that filters down into a molten sliver of gold on the horizon. Shiro drives them to Sal’s, their favourite diner that serves enough grease to rival Lance’s atrocious pick-up lines. Keith fits on the bike behind him snugly, arms tight around Shiro’s waist, and there’s something satisfying and grounding in the familiarity of it, something that Shiro draws comfort from gratefully.

It’s been a long week.

“I didn’t do this properly the first time,” Shiro says when they’re tucked into a booth together, Keith’s thigh warm where it presses against Shiro’s.

“Do what properly?”

“Take care of you,” Shiro says, prodding Keith’s lips with a fry until he takes it obediently.

The first solid food Shiro could eat in hospital after months of nasogastric tubes were fries, and so it makes sense in his head to give Keith his favourite comfort food.

“I’m still not hungry.”

“Just have a few,” Shiro encourages, because yeah, there’s the kind of harm that lines Keith’s wrist, and then there’s the type that Pidge so often has where she doesn’t eat properly.

“Okay.” Keith eats two more, salt coating his lips. “And you did take care of me, don’t say that.”

 _You didn’t stop saying you wanted to die though,_ Shiro thinks, but he beats it back down. It won’t do to entertain resentful thoughts like that.

“Maybe,” he hedges. “But I wish I’d done more.”

“You did enough,” Keith says. “More than enough.”

There’s more salt coating his fingers now. Maybe that’s what’s irritating Shiro’s eyes right now. A whole ocean’s worth of salt on Keith’s hands to make his eyes water and his nose run and wounds sting.

“Are we ever going to talk about it?”

Keith stares down at his fries, brow pinched together. “Do we have to? I’m fine now.”

Which, is a fucking lie, because he’s barely eaten today and Shiro scooped him from the floor only two days ago. Things like what Shiro walked in on don’t just _happen_ and then magically resolve seventy-two hours later.

“Are you?” Shiro challenges.

_“Yeah.”_

“Tell me why your mom is flying up then.”

Keith huffs, looking away. Shiro hates that. They’re usually so open with each other, they can tell each other anything. 

When Keith does answer, it’s quiet, a confession of sorts: “I don’t want to be that person, you know?”

“That person?”

“The one with issues.”

Shiro’s appetite, meagre to begin with, is gone. “You’re not that person, Keith. You’ll never be that.”

But he thinks of how Keith cried in his arms the other night, and how he said he wanted to sleep and never wake up. He thinks of the cuts on Keith’s arm and how vacant his eyes had been when Shiro cleaned them.

“It’s good to talk about these things, though. And you know I’m whatever you need, always, but it doesn’t have to be me. It can be someone who knows how to help.”

It’s a weighted suggestion, one that Shiro tosses out with an air of carelessness when in reality his anxiety is at an all time high.

Mental health isn’t a new thing for either of them, especially in their friend group. Allura and Hunk regularly go to therapy for their anxiety, as does Shiro.

But that’s the thing about therapy; before Shiro went, everyone always raved about it, said they were going to a therapist to sort out everything, and then they’d ask, ‘hey are you going to one too?’ while Shiro would shrug and keep putting it off.

_He was better now._

_It wasn’t as bad as it was._

_It was manageable._

_There were worse times._

Excuses all piling up one after the other so that it was easier to justify why he didn’t take himself to a psych and open up his body so that they could poke and prod around his organs and ask him all the hard and uncomfortable questions that he had spent so long evading.

Then it got to a point where Shiro was destroying his relationship with his Allura, who was his roommate at the time, because of how irritable and angry he was. There were the long nights spent waking up repeatedly to scroll through his phone mindlessly before trying to sleep again.

And then there was the moment when he stood on top of the university library’s roof and peered over the edge and wondered what might happen if he jumped off, and decided he didn’t really care what _did._

Those were enough hints.

So yeah, he knows just how difficult it is.

But still.

Keith refuses to look at Shiro.

“I’m okay, Shiro, really…” he says softly. “I’m just… tired. I just want to start over, try again. Get a hard reset. I don’t want to go to a therapist and have them just… tell me everything I’m doing wrong.”

Shiro wishes he was brave enough to hold Keith’s hand, but the timing feels wrong. “It’s not _quite_ like that. It’s kind of like… you have a ball of tangled string and they help you unravel it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

A group of teenagers wander into the diner, loud and obnoxious and everything that Shiro was probably like when he was their age. Their laughter breaks through the clouds hanging over his and Keith’s heads, makes Keith turn to Shiro and roll his eyes as if to say, _‘teenagers’,_ and the tension is lost.

— S —

It’s nearing Shiro’s bedtime when they return to Keith’s, knocking into each other because the lights are out and Shiro can’t find the damned switch.

Keith’s laugh is breathless but his grip on Shiro’s shoulder is strong as he pushes past him to turn the lights on. “I can’t believe you’re a genius.”

“Hardly,” Shiro snorts. “I just have adequate knowledge of a specific thing.”

“Did I stutter,” Keith deadpans, before breaking off into a yawn.

“Don’t—” Shiro warns, but it’s too late, because he’s yawning as well then.

Keith smirks, before he wanders towards his bedroom. Shiro watches him, unsure if he can follow or not.

It was easier at the diner. Keith had diverted all his attention to his fries and Shiro had suffered his way through his burger, the bun sticking to the roof of his mouth. Then they’d fought for the bill, and somehow, that was what made them okay again.

Keith no longer looked like Shiro had fed him gravel, and the fist wrapped around Shiro’s heart loosened a little.

“Home?” he offered.

 _“Dessert,”_ Keith corrected, like he couldn’t believe Shiro thought they could go without it.

The easy comfort they’d slipped into is tenuous now that they’re back where it all happened, like stumbling across an unwanted visitor they forgot about.

Except then Keith comes out, toothbrush stuck in his mouth. “You gonna stand there all night?”

“Was contemplating it,” Shiro retorts, even though internally, he’s leaping at the invitation to stay over. “Your tiles are _really interesting.”_

Keith flips him the bird.

They wind up on the bed together, Keith in a shirt that is definitely Shiro’s from the way it looks two sizes too big. Shiro always likes the way Keith steals his clothes.

“Thanks for tonight, Shiro,” Keith says into the quiet.

“Any time,” Shiro answers, curling deeper into the bedspread as he adds, “I’m sorry it took me two goes.”

“Stop apologising,” Keith says, drawl coming in stronger now that sleep is beginning to claim him. “There’s nothing to apologise for, seriously.”

The blue light from his lamp makes his lashes longer, his jawline sharper. He’s beautiful, so beautiful.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro asks.

“I’m okay.”

In the dark, Shiro reaches out until he can fold his hand carefully over Keith’s. Keith squeezes it.

“Are _you_ okay, Shiro?”

“Getting there,” Shiro admits.

He is. His pulse isn’t stuttering so much and he’s managing to keep his jaw unclenched most of the time. He might even get some sleep at this rate.

“Tell me what’s on your mind?” Keith says in a small voice.

Shiro almost doesn’t, almost makes up some excuse. But he thinks of Hunk telling him to talk, and remembers who he’s talking to—Keith, his best friend, the only person who’s seen Shiro cry, the one who held him during what Shiro now knows was his first panic attack, the one who trusted Shiro enough to ask him to see him at his worst on the weekend.

“I was just really scared. I don’t want to lose you, you know?”

“Shiro…”

Something is breaking in Shiro, an emotion that Shiro doesn’t have a name for. “You kept saying you wanted to die and it… really hurt, seeing you like that. You’re too important to me.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not supposed to be the one apologising, silly,” Shiro says, stupidly smitten all over again. “That’s _my_ job.”

“Yeah, you’re a full-timer,” Keith says, and it’s crazy, Shiro thinks, how easily they can step back from the edge of these huge conversations. “What’s the pay like?”

“Atrocious,” he coughs, biting down on the smile that threatens. “I’ll have to demand a raise.”

Keith whacks him half-heartedly. “Make sure you ask for overtime, too.”

It’s silent for a few minutes, before Keith says, “Thanks for telling me.”

“Thanks for letting me. And I meant what I said; I’m that person for you. You know I’ll never give up on you, but you can’t give up on yourself either.”

More silence.

“I’m sorry.”

Shiro squints at him, not wanting to drag them back into the pool of sadness they just escaped from. “Is this where I unhelpfully tell you to take your own advice?”

“No,” Keith says, eyes sliding shut, lashes long and thick. “This is where we both sleep.”

— S —

The morning dawns bright and hot, sun beaming through the gap in Keith’s curtains and waking Shiro before his alarm. For a moment he just stares at the ceiling, contemplating the benefits of just lying here for the entire day. What’s the worst that can happen?

 _You’d go broke and lose your job and apartment,_ his brain supplies most unhelpfully, and even then it almost doesn’t have any effect on Shiro.

What _does_ though is his actual alarm.

It’s the terrible iPhone one that sounds like a jackhammer bouncing around in his ears, the one that Hunk and Pidge refuse to let him get away with every time they hear it because they’re _both_ android snobs.

“The _fuck,_ Shiro,” Keith grumbles, pawing around clumsily for Shiro while Shiro rushes to switch the alarm off.

“My bad,” he says, laughing a little when Keith looks up at him blearily. “Morning.”

“It’s _way_ too early,” Keith complains, burying his head in the pillow.

Shiro pushes a hand into Keith’s hair, snagging on tangles immediately. There’s gotta be a comb here somewhere, but Shiro definitely needs to leave _now_ if he’s going to get to work on time.

So he simply brushes the fringe from Keith’s eyes and says the first thing that comes to mind: “Go back to sleep, baby.”

Shiro's stupid, _stupid_ mouth. He clenches it shut before anything else can come out.

But it’s too late, because Keith is looking up at him, bewildered. “Baby?”

Shiro thinks of Hunk saying anyone with eyes could see how Keith lights him up. He thinks of Keith calling him ‘sweetheart’ that one time when he sprained his ankle while they were hiking and Shiro had bridal-carried him to the car.

He thinks of the space inside his chest where everything is just _KeithKeithKeith._

“Baby, sweetheart,” he shrugs, not removing his hand from Keith’s hair, “what does it matter? You know I love you.”

“I know,” Keith says. “But you’ve never called me _that_ before.”

And here they are, on the edge of the cliff again, wondering which of the two are going to have the balls to jump off. Well, Keith is competitive as Shiro, but Shiro always likes winning.

“I can keep doing it if you like.”

Keith hugs the pillow closer. “Only if you mean it. Only if it isn’t just because we’re best friends.”

Shiro’s heart pounds. “It’s not because we’re best friends.”

Keith looks at him like he doesn’t know what to say to that. Shiro doesn’t blame him, because he doesn’t know what to say either, and for a moment they’re suspended in limbo, unsure whether to step forwards or retreat.

Then he nods. “Then keep doing it.”

— S —

It’s a month later that Keith wanders into Shiro’s house after his first session. Shiro’s arms are open already, having been an anxious mess all day angsting over Keith. They’ve spent the last few weeks taking one step forward, two steps back.

Krolia’s arrival helped a lot, but she only stuck around for a week before work called her back to Marmora. She didn’t comment on the way Keith would openly lean against Shiro, or reach for his hand, but Shiro felt her eyes.

“Take care of him,” she’d said as she hugged Shiro goodbye.

“I’ll do my darnedest,” he’d promised.

And he has been. Sometimes Keith makes Shiro laugh, other times he’s so irritable and snappish, Shiro just leaves him in his own apartment so they don’t hurl terrible words at each other. 

Two steps forward, one step back.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro says, hushed, as he strokes a hand through Keith’s hair.

Keith sniffs, turning his head fully into Shiro’s lap. “Raw,” he mumbles. “Like I got the shit kicked out of me emotionally.”

“It does that, yeah,” Shiro says. “But was it in a good way?”

Keith’s head moves in an affirmative action, face dragging along Shiro’s sweatpants.

“I’m really proud of you,” Shiro says into the quiet, hand pushing the hair from Keith’s eyes. “So proud.”

“Thank you,” Keith whispers. “For everything.”

“Always.”

Keith rubs his nose, sitting up then to take Shiro’s hand. His fingers touch Shiro’s cheek. Carefully he leans in, and Shiro closes his eyes at the feeling of Keith’s mouth touching his.

It’s their first kiss.

“I love you,” Keith says after.

The gentleness of it makes something in Shiro’s heart crack open. Maybe he should stop hydrating so much. Crying this often isn’t worth it.

But Keith is wobbly too, so Shiro figures it’s not too bad as he kisses Keith this time.

It’s a gentle one, the kind that promises better things to come.

“I love you too,” Shiro says, heart doing tumble turns in his chest.

Keith huffs, leaning forward to kiss Shiro again, and he’s still the best thing in Shiro’s life.

— end —

**Author's Note:**

> it's suicide prevention month in my country, and this topic is something i hold very dear to my heart. please don't ever think you're on your own—you are valid, you are treasured, you are loved.
> 
> you can find help and resources for your country [here](https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/)!
> 
> all my love; you've got this 💝


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